In today's modern society personal computing devices have become ubiquitous. Many people have two or more of such devices, and their use has become an important part of today's fast-paced and ever more connected economy. As we go about our daily lives we rely on personal computing devices for business, entertainment, communications, personal development, and other reasons. We use them for surfing the Web, checking email, creating documents, making purchases online, sending and receiving faxes, playing games, etc., and rarely a day goes by that a new personal computing device is not created that supposedly helps make our life easier, richer, and more convenient.
When most people refer to a personal computer device they commonly think of the Personal Computer (PC) or desktop style computer. However, the needs of modern society have demanded that personal computing devices become increasingly more portable. Such demands have also caused computing devices to infiltrate every area of society. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to use a laptop on your commute into work, occasionally checking your calendar on your portable digital assistant (PDA), while your child takes a handheld Gameboy™ or similar type of electronic gaming device into school. At the same time, you may get deliveries from a UPS or similar delivery service whose employees use a PDA-style handheld device for tracking packages. Police and traffic officers use similar handheld devices for writing citations and tickets. The many varieties and uses of such devices are more and more widespread everyday.
Of course, such personal computing devices are rarely passive or just display information in a merely passive or read-only manner. Typically, they allow the user to input information into the device and/or to retrieve information from the device. The most common output device is still the display screen. Much work has been done in the past few years to develop new types of display screens that are very small and lightweight, yet are clear and of high resolution. Such display screens are ideal for portable computing devices, and have appeared in everything from handheld PDA devices, to portable cellular telephones. In many recently developed implementations, such as the PalmPilot from 3Com, Inc., the display screen is also used as the primary input mechanism in that it incorporates a touch sensitive screen, and portions of the screen accept stylus strokes to render characters and accept commands.
In recent years many new methods and devices for entering text and commands into personal computing devices have debuted, and some have met technical and/or commercial success. These include folding keyboards, half keyboards, chorded keyboards, handwriting recognition, voice recognition, dials, rocker pads, and a variety of button shapes and arrangements.
Yet, with all of these innovations, the full standard western keyboard is still in demand, and required for commercial success, usually as a standard accessory or as an available inexpensive addition.
If anything, the full standard keyboard is used and known by far more people with more dexterity and speed than ever before, and this trend is accelerating year by year as more people acquire computing devices, and as each person who owns or uses them acquires more than one device. This standard keyboard form is sometimes referred to as the ‘QWERTY’ keyboard, for its usual arrangement of letters on the top row of alphabetic characters, although it varies from country to country, and from language to language, to some degree. It includes a distinct key for every letter of the English alphabet, each digit, specific non-English characters as needed, and many other common characters. Many non-Western countries with incompatible or radically different writing systems nevertheless use this kind of keyboard for entry of words and commands, sometimes in English to accommodate needs or preferences, and at other times in their native writing system through a variety of methods, sequences, and combinations.
While the most common personal computing device is still the laptop (often referred to as a portable desktop, notebook computer, or simply as notebook), interface mechanisms found on today's laptop are typically the same as those that have been common in laptops for the past twenty years. Laptop cursor-related interfaces, such as Trackpoint™ mechanisms and touch sensitive pads have greatly enhanced the ability to move the cursor around the screen, but despite all that has been done to enhance the functionality of the key board mechanism used to input the more substantial amounts of data into the device, laptop devices almost without exception still incorporate a full keyboard device (or simply a keyboard). The keyboard is usually attached and hinged to the other laptop mechanisms and display in order to enter data. One of the problems with this method is that the laptop is then much larger than it really needs to be. In addition, the hinge type mechanism requires that electrical connections have to be connected between the keyboard and the display part of the laptop, making it more complex to design, and prone to failure during frequent opening and closing. Having such a hinged or clamshell device also means that the laptop is difficult to use while standing, or in areas that do not have a steady and flat surface upon which to place the laptop.
Some PDA devices have mimicked the operation of the laptop by providing a keyboard hinged or otherwise attached to the PDA device itself. In many instances the keyboard is an optional attachment that can be coupled to or decoupled from the device at will. Such PDA devices however, while an improvement, typically suffer from the same problems associated with laptops. A common problem is that the added keyboard adds complexity to the manufacturing process, is prone to failure, and is cumbersome to use particularly when standing. In addition, the PDA keyboards available typically use smaller keys that make it difficult to type with. A number of companies have developed full-size keyboards that can be removably attached to a PDA device by a connector cable and that allows the user to attach the keyboard for occasional entry of data. However, these full-size keyboard devices still suffer from the fact that they must be placed on a rigid surface in order to provide enough support for the user to actually type on.
Some PDA manufacturers, have eliminated the keyboard idea altogether, replacing the input device merely with a set of function keys and perhaps a mouse or a stylus or similar kind of cursor device. The problem with this approach is that, any time extensive data entry needs to be performed, the user must perform it by writing in a stylized entry language on the touch pad, or by using a virtual-style keyboard that appears at request on the display screen. Such methods of entering data are not conducive to fast, accurate, or comfortable typing, and as a result PDA devices are in almost all instances limited to only occasional or minimal data entry.
The problems described above are not restricted merely to laptop devices and PDA devices. All personal computing devices, and equivalent electronic data devices that are designed to be portable, suffer from the same problem of how to provide a user interface mechanism that allows for considerable data input or entry of data, while minimizing the amount of space the interface mechanism actually takes up in or on the device. Devices that suffer from this problem include portable phones, portable game machines such as those from Nintendo™ and Sega™, portable data recorders such as those used by delivery and distribution companies, and medical devices including those used for endoscopic surgery.
With each of these type of devices one primary design dilemma is to minimize the amount of space that the interface mechanism takes up on the device while simultaneously maximizing the amount of display space available to the user, while a second but intimately related design goal is to do this in a manner that makes for fast, convenient entry of data, and that can be used in an intuitive manner.
A combination of these two design elements may be useful in developing a device or an interface that can be used by a user in cramped quarters, while standing up, or with only free hand. Reducing and/or eliminating the number of components that must be used in making such a device would increase the ruggedness of the device and decrease the overall weight and complexity. One may anticipate that such devices will be especially useful in situations that require traveling, for example on airplanes. Whatever mechanism is used, a primary concern is to ensure that the interface is familiar enough to the user that it does not hinder their everyday use and enjoyment of the device.